How To Overcome Your Biggest Opponent, Yourself (STOP Being A Hypocrite!)

We must first admit that we are all guilty of being a hypocrite at times. We have all said one thing and done another.  A simple way to see that you have been a hypocrite at some point is first asking yourself what percentage of sports are physical vs mental?  The next part is asking yourself how much time are you actually dedicationing to training physically vs mentally? Many athletes, coaches and parents would agree that sports are at least 80% mental but they are spending at least 95% of their time on training the physical aspects of the sport.

We live in an age of the buffered self where we often distract ourselves with other activities instead of sitting with the discomfort and attacking it head on.  Another way of looking at this in athletics is asking yourself on a scale of 1-10, how important is your goal to you? Are your actions consistent with your words?  For example, if you believe that healthy nutrition and proper sleep habits are essential in order to bring out your best performances. Rate yourself on how consistently are you eating healthy and getting proper sleep on a daily basis?  

Knowing that you have done all of the little things correct inside and outside of your sport consistently will tremendously boost your confidence.  “The simple things are simple to do and simple not to do.” 

Competence builds confidence along with a solid self belief system.  “What you do in the dark will eventually come to the light.”

“You cannot have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic”.  

Start by listing out all of the elements that you feel are absolutely essential for you to perform at your best.  Here are some suggestions; strength training, conditioning, flexibility, nutrition, sleep, technique/fundamentals, and most importantly MINDSET.  

Next rate each of these elements on a scale of 1-10 by how much effort you are currently putting forth towards each of these.

Now start putting together a simple but effective action plan that is going to lead to you making progression in each of these elements and building positive life long habits that are going to lead to success in all areas of your life.

Lastly, the most important step is to start actively living out the action plan today!  “The start is what stops most”. You can have all of the knowledge in the world but without any action it is going to be very difficult to expect different results and you will fall under the definition of insanity.